An attempt at tearing the seams of language and culture to tailor a fairer fit.

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I woke up to see that horrendously “fat” woman, and was once again reminded of just how stupid the whole “body diversity” thing is within the fashion industry.

This is what I shared as a status over it:

This is not the right message. This ‘plus’ sized model is at once normal in her size and abnormal in appearance. She has either been Photoshopped or shows an alarming amount of unattainable perfection: this is a woman whose weight has never fluctuated, her skin has never been stretched then deflated, stretched then deflated… this woman is young enough or lucky enough to not have cellulite. She has never gone through some sort of physical trauma that left a scar. She tans naked. She is the ‘fat’ ideal, the socially acceptable face of fat, where in you ARE bigger and may have a ‘little tummy’ but you aren’t actually ‘fat’, scarred, marred by stretch marks, cellulite, or excess skin.

This is the reason why women give up on dieting or why many of us, after losing weight, still feel deep self-hate and shame. I will never look like this. I will always be ugly in comparison to this woman. But this is what I am presented with as a ‘better alternative’ to anorexic looking models. This is not the way I would be after eating less calories and exercising for more than an hour each day. And yet this is often the sort of body that we are presented with when we see before/afters of fat women who have lost weight.

This images makes me say, why bother? I like candy/cookies/whatever and if I feel like eating them, why not? I could give them up, but still never be right. So who cares? If I can’t take pleasure in actually being beautiful so why deny myself the only pleasure I can have… food.

This is why no one will ever consider me healthy or perfect. My body is now ‘damaged’ beyond ever being this. Being told that I should work to obtain this because I am so unhealthy the way I am is slapping lipstick on the asshole face of bigotry.

That is how the concern for my horrible ‘obesity’ problem, the awareness that I am lazy AND stupid for just buying into accepting accepting myself for myself, when obviously, no fatty has a right to feel anything but disgusting and ashamed, is bigotry.

Being told by male friends or friends of friends that my efforts to end stigma are me complaining about being fat, blaming others, or somehow deflecting my shame onto someone less deserving of it than me, is bigotry.

In the bigot’s opinion, I am not only a blob that deserves to be discriminated against, I am also an idiot for just not changing. Fat and stupid and ugly. That is how it feels when I am told I CAN change into this, magically, with semi-starvation diets and weight lifting or something likewise stupid.

And still, it is funny that men are the ones who say I am blaming others and not taking responsibility for my “health.”

One wonders why so many of the guys around me are so invested in telling me how to be. My boyfriend finds it ridiculous. He’s into fitness and everything but he keeps asking, why do any of us think it is our business to tell others how to live?